Lot of sweat and brainpower into figuring out what do our riders need to keep them coming back. One factor contributing to the decline, competition with Ride Share Companies like uber and lyft. But the survey of riders found the number one reason people gave is many of them werent going out as much on weekends. Number two, they didnt like the long wait between trains on the weekends. But number three was dirty trains. Number four worries about crime. Number five, concerns about the homeless. Police chief ed alvarez said crime was down 18 in january of 2019 versus january of 2018. Cell phone thefts were also down 40 over the same period. Were not declaring victory just yet, but were continuing to work on it, and were going to keep building op it. Bart is also exploring ways to get the riders back. One proposal is to offer discounted fares to certain riders like students and seniors, or even going a step further. One of the things weve been doing is handing out free passes for the weekend. And weve been looking at it. And really, it doesnt cost us that much, because a lot of people are bringing friends who are paying. Theyre also talking about maybe using a flat fee on the weekends for round trips. Anything they can do to get those passengers back on the trains nights and weekends. If there is a bit of good news, they have seen a bit of an uptick in ridership during peak periods, but it is those night and weekend, the off peak periods they are really concerned about right now. Live in Pleasant Hill bart, eric thomas, abc7 news. Eric, a lot of it is people want to feel safe on bart. So what else did the chief have to say about safety . Well, he also mentioned of course the ambassadors program, unarmed citizens on the trains to make sure that people feel safe,nd also they put 12 officers, assigned them just to ride the trains. But he also says the key to all this is going to be full staffing of the bart police department, which he plans on doing, hiring 95 additional officers over the next five years. All right. Eric thomas reporting live for us tonight in walnut creek, thank you. New at 6 00, bart police need your help identifying this man you see in these images. He is suspected of punching a man and hitting him with possibly a bike chain while on a dilly city bound train. The suspect allegedly assaulted the victim after he asked for directions. Witnesses tell police the attack was unprovoked. The victim was treated at the hospital with nonlifethreatening injuries. The man accused of murdering bart passenger nia wilson in 2018 took the stand today, again in his own defense. Testimony that lasted barely 15 minutes before John Lee Cowells outburst prompted his removal from the courtroom once again. Cowells attorney is saying his attack was prompted by Mental Illness, but Laura Anthony is live outside Alameda County superior court in oakland tonight with the story. Laura . Well, hi, dan. It was on odd day in court here. It started this morning when the defendant, John Lee Cowell refused to come into the courtroom. It took more than an hour for his attorney to persuade him to come into the court and take the stand, but he wasnt there for long. He showing signs of manipulation. The sister of bart stabbing victim nia wilson doesnt buy that nias alleged killer, testifying in his own defense, is mentally ill. He want to project his feelings on to others so he wont we wont get a answer. John lee cowell lasted just 15 minutes on the witness stand. During process by Alameda County prosecutor pitch ford, cowell became combative, saying he remembered the knife held up before him, but not the july 2018 stabbing, even as he identified himself in a surveillance video. Quote, i dont remember anything like that. What is this that were watching . As the prosecutor tried to play a slow motion video, cowell kept interrupting and unleashed profanities. Back the f down. And when ordered to leave, now they cant force me to say s if im fing leaving. He continues to answer questions until the whole courtroom can see that he about to get caught and what he is doing. And then he acts like he is crazy. Cowell was escorted out of the courtroom and not present when his aunt testified that he exhibited paranoia and symptoms of Mental Illness since childhood, claiming to see aliens and fake skins. Jocelyn camas says she was nia wilsons close friend. She was a beautiul soul. She was a brilliant girl. And there is more to her story than just this. Now once cowell was escorted out of the courtroom, he did not return for the rest of the days testimony. The evidence phase of this trial could wrap up as soon as next week, and then there will be a separate phase to determine cowells sanity. Live in oakland, Laura Anthony, abc7 news. All right, laura, thanks very much. Abc7 news devoted a week to covering bart as part of our commitment to building a better bay area. We rode trains to every station. Look for a special bart week coverage starting on february 24th. Hope youll tune in for that. And tell us what you think and what your experiences are. Use the dear bart with your stories on twitter and facebook. New developments. Four people who are arrested in the west oakland moms for housing eviction in january will not face charges. Thats according to the Alameda County dolphins. Misty cross, tolani king and two supporters were taken into custody by sheriffs deputies. The d. A. Did not want to make it a big political issue. And new developments in yesterdays hitandrun crash in San Franciscos Mission district. Police have arrested the driver for hitandrun and running a red light. Hes been identified as 62yearold San Francisco resident steven kernan. Three pedestrians were hurt in the crash at 23rd and mission streets. Two are still in Critical Condition right now. One of the victims was getting off a muni bus when they were hit by a toyota prius that drove on to the sidewalk. Police say dui is not a factor in the crash. This new video shows the underground vault fire that knocked out power to thousands of homes and the San Francisco ballet last night. Some 9100 customers were impacted in the haightashbury and the hayes valley neighborhoods. The fault was located at laguna and ivy street. Power was restored to everyone by midnight. Police in the east bay are investigating a series of armed robberies this week. The first was captured in this shocking video in oakland monday afternoon. Nownlyn abc7, kate larsen spoke to the victim of the latest robbery and has new video of the suspect police are looking for. Only on abc7, new video in an Armed Robbery suspect walking down san pablo avenue in richmond, moments before he allegedly robbed this man at gunpoint. He attack me from behind me. And he put me a gun in my stomach. And he took my money, and he said to me, give me all your money and shut up and dont say anything. Panfilo perez says he gave him his wallet and then called police. Brazen, very brazen. Sergeant Aaron Pomeroy with richmond pd says perez was robbed around 5 15 p. M. Monday. Busy business district. This individual walked by him and ultimately pointed a gun at him and demanded money and property from him. While looking at this surveillance video, Sergeant Pomeroy realized the suspect looked a lot like another man from another robbery earlier the same day. We notice a lot of similarities. Ring video shows two men sneaking up on a young man cleaning his car in his driveway and then robbing him at gunpoint around 1 30 afternoon. The victim said they stole his phone and gold jewelry. With all the video circulating, in daly city they called police and said they believe one of the suspects shoplifted clothing from three stores at the mallace wednesday. I think police needs to catch this man. Indicate larson, abc7 news. Oakland police say because of the richmond Armed Robbery, they have bumped up the reward to 7500 for information that leads to an arrest in the case. Theyre also hoping to speak to anyone with information about the suspects or who may have relevant video. Tonight china is reporting 116 new deaths from the coronavirus. Nearly 52,000 people have been infected just in the hubei province. There are now 15 cases here in the united states. The latest is an evacuee under quarantine at a Texas Military base. There are eight total cases in california, including two each in santa clara and san benito counties. Cdc Officials Say there will likely be additional cases among people recently returning from china. I think eventually the virus will find a foothold, and we will get communitybased transmission, and you can start to think of it in the sense like seasonal flu. The only difference is we dont understand this virus. Japan reported its first coronavirus fatality today. Its only the second worldwide outside of china. Hundreds of Cruise Ship Passengers are finally disembarking in cambodia after being turned away from several ports buzz of coronavirus fear. There are no known or suspected cases on board the wester dam. Christina kirby from alameda has been on the ship since february 1. We spoke with her yesterday. Today she tweeted the show of support from cambodia has been overwhelming. We know you want information about the coronavirus, as much as you can get, so we have dedicated one of our pages on our website to all of the reporting weve done on this story. Youll find it on abc7news. Com. Building a better bay area means taking care of the problems that we see every day. Thats right. In San Francisco that means the trash on the streets. Next, a live report on what the city started doing today to take care of it. Can Artificial Intelligence solve social problems . See how google is trying to answer yes to that question. Im Spencer Christian looking forward to some romantic weather conditions for our valentines evening tomorrow. Your heart may get its wish. Ill have the accuweather forecast coming up. This valentines day, some advice from someone who really knows her stuff. She is 90 dont reveal my age. Oh, you blow a kiss into the sun we need someone to lean on the new xc90 available with six seats. Xc90. Recharged. Save up to 2,000 in allowances on select new volvo models through march 2nd. Visit your local volvo dealer. Putting term limits on congress, about washington insiders went crazy. They said term limits are bad, that theyll break government. What a joke congress is working fine for politicians and corporations, but its not doing anything for real people on climate, health care or gun safety. The only way we get new ideas is electing new people, including a president willing to shakeup washington. Im tom steyer and i approve this message. Othroughout the country for the past twelve years, mr. Michael bloomberg is here. Vo leadership in action. Mayor bloomberg and president obama worked together in the fight for gun safety laws, to improve education, and to develop innovative ways to help teens gain the skills needed to find good jobs. Obama at a time when washington is divided in old ideological battles he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions. Bloomberg im Mike Bloomberg and i approve this message. Building a better bay area means better streets, cleaner streets. The increasing complaints about the rising level of garbage, needles, and human waste found on San Francisco city streets has led to todays launch of a Pilot Program to deep clean those streets. City officials and local businesses hope that it will make a big difference and be a big boost for business. Abc7 News Reporter anser hassan is live with the story tonight. Anser . Dan, good evening. Department of public work crews are out here seven days a week, keeping streets clean. But this program is different. Its about powerwashing some of the busiest commercial corridors here in the city. City Officials Say theyre excited about the program, but that it will only work if businesses and residents do their part. San franciscos Little Saigon is getting blasted. 104. Ill go check it out. Reporter Guillermo Perez is a supervisor with the department of public works. He is leading a crew of 20 to power blast parts of arkansas street, spraying down intersections, powerwashing sidewalks for gum and human waste, a full flush of the area. We want the make sure were getting all of that out there, whether its a stench of smell, whether its grease or grime, cigarette butts, whatever it can be, we want to make sure that were doing a detailed job to where were addressing almost everything thats out there. Its a sixmonth Pilot Program to deep clean commercial corridors. Renee colorado with the tenderloin commercial association said something had to be done because Small Businesses were complaining about a drop in traffic and tourists. It translates directly into dollars for the merchants, because peop to wa through filth. Crews spent over an hour cleaning up the area. Hu wang who owns the golden lotus restaurant helps out. He thinks this will be a big boost for business. Its good to come to the restaurant. Thinking type of power wash is usual i will only done after a big event like a parade. The city is open to extending the program, but insists for the streets to stay clean, businesses and residents have to do their part with upkeep. Notices were already posted today for some shops to clean up graffiti around their stores. So by us coming out here and doing this deep cleaning, maybe it will be easier for the public to do their part on keeping the city clean. Crews will clean one street a week between now and the end of jean. The next street to be cleaned will be announced next week. Reporting live, anser hassan, abc7 news. Thank you. We want to hear your ideas about building a better bay area. Share them by joining our better Bay Area Group on facebook. Zationto u artificial ged 20 intelligence to solve problems to benefit society. Its also providing 25 million to support it. David louie has an i l what ide program. Leaders of googles philanthropic arm, google. Org gather visionaries under one roof to encourage them to harness the power of Artificial Intelligence to solve social problems, such as forecasting floods and wildfires, and predicting seismic after shocks. For inspiration, it showcased the work of 20 projects its supporting with 25 million in grants over three years, such as this initiative in uganda to monitor and address air pollution by deploying monitors on motor bikes. Things which the ai can do still not got at yet. So finding the right cases have we need to spend our time now. San franciscobased rain forest connection is using ai to detect threats and illegal logging in rain forests. Ai can analyze sound picked up by internetconnected microphones planted 150 feet high and listen for chain sauce. It can separate out and label the sounds of wildlife, insects or trucks. They let us listen to illegal logging. This is from last week. And the ranger, the people on the ground had a chance to respond to this and stop it. The International HumanitarianGroup Doctors without borders is working on ai to give technicians in less developed nations a tool to decide what treatment to use to treat a bacterial infection. Ai is going in order to give ready to use result for the clinician and ensure that the patient was treated. The impact challenge received over 2600 proposals. The 20 selected will continue to receive mentoring to develop their projects. Clearly, were at the very beginning of understanding the potential for Artificial Intelligence, but these 20 grantees the projects are working on give us a sense that the frontier seems to be limitless. In red woo city, david louie, abc7 news. Lets move on to the weather forecast. A little closer to the weekend. And that cool breeze cometh. Its getting cooler and breezier all the time. Here is a live look at doppler 7. We had a sharp drop in temperatures from yesterday. Lots of clouds were hanging around throughout the day, and they are increasing now. Here is a relatively clear view from our south beach camera, looking back at the skyline. You can see lots of clouds off in the distance. It is currently 51 with mid50s at oakland, redwood city, san jose, 62 at gilroy and 50 at half moon bay. At the golden gate, the skies are cloudy, but the clouds are a bit elevated. We had some lower clouds there a bit earlier, and they will return. Right now were looking at temperature readings of 49 degrees at santa rosa and petaluma. Low 50s at fairfield, concord and livermore. And the few from emeryville with clouds still at various levels of the atmosphere. But we have enough breaks there that we see areas of clearing. And these are our forecast features. We will see increasi loudsovern means of course low visibility in the Early Morning hours for morning commuters. Just a kiss of sunshine is likely for valentines day the weekend which means periods of clouds, periods of sun and maybe a spritz or a sprinkle. Here is our fog cast starting at 7 00 this evening. Its going to get foggier and foggier, not only at the coast, but out over the bay and well inland and all the way out to the central valley. Tomorrow morning when the commute gets under way, its probably going to be a slow go because the low clouds are going to hang around for a while. Overnight low temperatures will generally be in the low to mid40s. And then tomorrow by afternoon, well see lots of those clouds moving out of here. Well have bright skies and periods of sunshine tomorrow, but a few lingering clouds as well. Highs will be mainly in the low to mid60s tomorrow. Tomorrow evening, valentine